Bouchon: Sauteed Salmon with Leeks

After that disaster with the chicken and cauliflower, you'd think I'd be intimidated when looking at the two page recipe for Sauteed Salmon with Leeks in Bouchon by Thomas Keller.

Keller is a world-class, highly respected and honored chef-owner. He's a culinary rock star. An aging culinary rock star who is known to be a perfectionist. And his recipes are not easy to follow because they each step is intricately detailed.

I broke the two pages worth of sauteed salmon down into steps. 

1. Prepare the leeks
2. Prepare the sauce
3. Start the fish
4. Finish the leeks
5. Place food on the plate and cross fingers.

Leeks are beautiful mild onions. I wasn't sure if I'd like them as the stand alone vegetable in the recipe, and had planned to also make the Califlower Gratin. Then I read the recipe for cauliflower and dropped the notion of trying to prepare the salmon and the cauliflower. I would have been cooking all night.

First, I cleaned the leeks. This is crucial because leeks are almost always very dirty. Heck, when I dropped them on the counter at the grocery store, and commented on how dirty they were, the check-out person commented, "Heck, these are dirty. They must come from the ground or something."

Very Dirty Leeks
I chopped until I had some rounds, then swished through water to clean the last of the residue and gave the little round green things a quick go around in a warm, salted water and drained.

Steaming LeeksThe recipe calls for the leeks to then go into an ice water bath. I didn't bother as I knew I'd be using the leeks very soon.

Here's the thing about cooking from a Keller cookbook. His culinary touchstone is French cuisine, so there's always butter. The sauce for this dish is no exception. Beurre blanc is a white sauce made of reduced vinegar, herbs, heavy cream, and unsalted butter.

I didn't have all of the ingredients - no champagne vinegar in my local store, and no bay leaves in my cupboard. Still, all ingredients I had went into a small pan. A little later those things had reduced and I added heavy cream. That reduced, and I added butter. After more whisking, the butter was incorporated and the sauce was drained. I added a little chicken stock and set aside.

Talking with Chef Bill Waltz a few months ago, he asked me what my favorite food to cook was. I thought about answering cookies or brownies, but, to tell the truth, it's salmon. Over the last couple of years I think I've mastered the stovetop cooking technique.

(I also have a great way to prepare salmon in the microwave, but that's another post.)

The salmon was sauteed in canola oil for five minutes on one side. Keller says to get a salmon filet with skin on one side, but there wasn't any at my local superstore. He also admonishes home cooks to leave the top of the salmon rare. I figured my store didn't provide sushi grade salmon, so I flipped it and cooked it just a bit - maybe 1 minute.

At the same time, the leeks were in a pan with chicken stock, and I heated up the beurre blanc in the microwave. Sacriledge!

I followed Keller's directions for plating the dish as well and placed a couple of spoonsful of sauce onto the plate and formed a circle. A slotted spoon added leeks. And a salmon fillet topped it off.

Salmon and Leeks Final Plating
This went from fridge to plate in just about an hour. And it was delicious.

Don't be daunted by Keller or Bouchon. This is French bistro cooking and you can do it. Don't try to do a complicated recipe in one evening like I did with the chicken and cauliflower. For the salmon and leeks, I even retyped the recipe to be sure I understood all of the steps.

Big Bouchon Chicken and Cauliflower Boo Boos

I attempted to cook one of two roast chicken recipes from Bouchon by Thomas Keller. I also attempted to cook some cauliflower from the same. My cooking mojo, however, took the night off.

In the online world, people fuss over the two roast chicken recipes in Bouchon. There's even a Viking-produced video of Keller demonstrating how to roast chicken. I watched this a couple of times out of curiosity: he makes it look so easy. Plus he's got an assistant.

I don't have an assistant, but I do have a copy of the Williams-Sonoma Kitchen Companion which gives a step-by-step of trussing a chicken with accompanying illustrations. I haven't used the book much, but find it one of those things I like to have around because it's a reliable reference. The internet can be so sketchy sometimes.

I worked on the shorter version of Roast Chicken found in the opening pages of the book: "My Favorite Roast Chicken" or "Mon pullet roti" in French. This version lacks the brining that the longer verison has.

The recipe calls for a 2-3 lb chicken. The only thing I could find in my grocery store was a nearly 5 pounder. Maybe next time I'll check the co-op for a smaller bird.

I stuffed my bird with thyme - I had so much, it seemed a pity to waste it, so into the cavity of the bird it went, along with salt and pepper.

I trussed the bird with no difficulties, and salted the outside. Then it went into the oven at 450, and I went to work on the lengthy cauliflower gratin recipe.

 Trussed Bird

By lengthy, I mean one page, more than three steps, and a lot of dirty dishes in the process before it went into the oven to brown. And it's cauliflower, so it's WHITE, and that isn't too easy to photograph.

Round about a half hour later, I started to smell something burning. I ignored it, and continued on with the complicated cauliflower.

Eventually the smell got so overpowering that I looked in the oven to find the wing tips burning, and drum stick bones also beginning to burn, and the breast already nicely browned. Fat from the bird was sizzling at an alarming rate, so I carefully pulled the bird and pan out of the oven. The sizzling continued for an inordinately long time.

I kept working on the cauliflower, and eventually put the bird back into the oven at a more reasonable temperature of 350. More than a half hour later, it wasn't done. And I  don't want to eat pink chicken, do you? I didn't think so.

Pink, Pink Chicken

I nuked some of the chicken until it looked palatable, and dumped some of the cauliflower along side. It wasn't very good.

Sure, the cauliflower sauce was tasty - there was depth and creaminess. But the cauliflower itself was still crunchy. Clearly, not enough blanching. And after the chicken battle, I just couldn't bring myself to eat much of the chicken either. I think I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and called it good. Then cleaned up the kitchen before collapsing into bed. Harrumph!

The next day for dinner, I put a some of the cauliflower into the microwave for a minute and let it steam. I did the same with the chicken, and dinner was much improved over the first night. Still can't say I'll be trying the roast chicken anytime soon again though. It's so much easier to pick up a perfect rotisserie chicken than it is to roast. And the cauliflower? Too much work for a simply dinner.

Sigh. I hoped the other recipes I had selected from Bouchon proved to be more satisfying.